Boating for Beginners, Part One: A Handy-Dandy Guide to Cunnilingus for the Guys

Cunnilingus isn’t nearly as hard as it’s made out to be. However, it helps to know what you’re doing down there – and, more importantly, why.

"Your heart’s vagina be with you!"

— Shakespeare Quote Generator

Good Sportsmanship Will Get You Everywhere

“A man becomes preeminent, he's expected to have enthusiasms. Enthusiasms... What are mine? What draws my admiration? What is that which gives me joy? Baseball! A man stands alone at the plate. This is the time for what? For individual achievement. There he stands alone. But in the field, what? Part of a team. Teamwork... Looks, throws, catches, hustles. Part of one big team. Bats himself the live-long day, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and so on. If his team don't field... what is he? You follow me? No one. Sunny day, the stands are full of fans. What does he have to say? I'm goin' out there for myself. But... I get nowhere unless the team wins.”
- Robert DeNiro as Al Capone, from the film The Untouchables

When Pulitzer Prize-winning scribe David Mamet wrote those words, he probably wasn’t thinking about oral sex. Yet, remove the baseball talk, and you’ve got the perfect analogy for oral sex – for cunnilingus, in particular. A man stands (or kneels/lays) alone. This is the time for individual achievement – if you are so fortunate as to be invited by a woman to provide her oral gratification, you do indeed stand – or kneel, or hunch – alone. This is your time to shine. But like a batter in the batter’s box, if you haven’t taken the time to develop your skills, you’re liable to strike out. (And you might not even get invited to take part in the team aspect of the festivities if you do that poorly.)

Because in this finicky-persnickety case, it is far better a thing to be booed by 50,000 people than it is to be booed/shooed-off by one unsatisfied woman.

It’s probably a safe bet, that, if you’re a guy, you haven’t done a whole lot of research into the anatomical makeup of women, let alone have you read Our Bodies, Ourselves. But a little anatomy lesson might come in handy – after all, if you want to please your partner to the best of your ability, the best thing you can do is learn about WHAT you’re pleasing. It’s like baseball – if you don’t understand the strike zone, chances are that you’re going to strike out. And in grandly ugly fashion.

So let’s take a gander at what just may be nature’s finest machine – the vagina!

CLITORIS
At first glance, the clitoris is the small, somewhat button-shaped protuberance above the opening of the vagina, at the top of the inner labia. And you’d be right to perceive its similarity to the glans of the penis in its extreme sensitivity and susceptibility to pleasure. But the clitoris is in truth far more that what meets the eye. It actually surrounds and extends inside the vagina. Which means that orgasm once thought to be strictly vaginal are in fact clitoral, as it’s the clitoral tissue being primarily stimulated.

As far as the external clitoris goes, you’ll know it’s aroused when it swells with blood (again, much like the penis) and its button-shape becomes even more pronounced.

The area between the vagina and the rectum also contains erectable tissue that connects, ultimately, to the clitoris. This is why stroking, touching, or licking that area can lead to sexual arousal.

The clitoris can vary in size. When female to male transsexuals begin taking testosterone it causes their clitoris to grow. Female-to-male transgendered persons can have a clitoris that is up to three inches long.

Get to know it. Become friends with it. In fact, you’d do well to become BFFs with it. You know that saying ‘it’s who you know’? The clitoris is the ultimate proof of that saying – make it happy, and its owner will in turn bestow upon you sexual fortunes so bright as to rival the ransom of a thousand kings!

For more information on the friendly neighborhood clitoris, especially its internal structure, check out Betty Dodson’s totally awesome clitoral sketch-fest.

MONS PUBIS
No, this is not the name of an alien in Star Wars. It’s the soft tissue above the pubic bone, covered with a triangular tuft of pubic hair. If you like to have sex with women, then the mons pubis should be of great interest to you, as it is essentially the downward-pointing arrow indicating that you are now entering Pussyland.

LABIA MAJORA
Also known as the labia majora. The outer lips of the vaginal opening, beginning at the clitoral hood and extending down to the perineum. The majora display hair, corresponding to the male scrotum. Which goes to show that between women and men, there are a great many genitological similarities, giving a special biological credence to Irving Berlin’s famous ditty “Anything You Can Do”:

“Anything you can do
I can do better
I can do anything
Better than you”

LABIA MINORA
If the labia majora are the outer defenses of the vagina, then the labia minor represent the inner defenses. They’re the folded inner lips of the vaginal opening. The labia minora are sort of like flowers, or snowflakes – they come in a vast array of sizes, shapes, and colors – and no two examples are exactly the same.

VAGINA
While it’s common to use ‘vagina’ to summarize the female genitalia, the word itself actually refers to a very specific portion of the overall package. The vagina is, in actuality, the muscle itself – the passageway, opening just past the inner lips of the labia minora, and extending back to the cervix. In other words – if you have a penis, and if, with said penis, you have sex with women, if you have ever had sex with a woman, or if you are considering having sex with a women at some point in the future, then the vagina is where said penis goes.

G-SPOT
And moving right along, past the labia minora and inside the vagina itself, to the most hotly-contested feature of the female genitalia, in more ways than one – the g-spot. Ask a sexually happy and healthy woman if she has a g-spot, and she’ll most likely answer in the affirmative. Ask a doctor or a scientist about it, and they’re bound to give you the clinical runaround, which ultimately ends in “there is no conclusive evidence which suggests the existence of the g-spot”.
Which leads to a really important question: who’re you gonna believe – Poindexter, or the Pretty (and Pretty Naked) Lady POINTING to her g-spot and beckoning you to come hither?

Yeah; that’s what we thought. Sorry, doc – let us know when you’ve caught up, mmkay? As for the rest of us, it’s time to go Gspotting. The G, by the by, stands for Gräfenberg, the nice fellow who discovered it back in the 1950s.

Since our good friends in the scientific community are still hesitant to admit to the g-spot’s existence (most likely because there’s money to be made in the science of denial), there’s no exact consensus as to where it’s located. But generally speaking, it’s located between one-third and one-half of the way between the vaginal opening and the cervix. Trust us, though – it’s well worth your time to go looking for it. Just like the clitoris, the g-spot is another BFF in wait of your gentle ministrations. In many cases, it may feel somewhat spongy.

Keep in mind however that like penises, all female genitals are different. We’d compare them to fingerprints, but fingerprints are grimy business. So let’s draw the analogical line in the sand at snowflakes. They’re pretty, and no two are alike. As such, not every woman has pronounced g-spot – it’s there, it’s just not as easy to find. Also, not every woman is as Gspottishly sensitive as some may be. Everybody’s different. Which just makes each sexual adventure all the more fun – Gspottery is a lot like pottery: every glancing touch brings with it something…new.

BARTHOLIN’S GLAND
Also known as Bartholin glands, these are a pair of small glands to the left and right of the vaginal opening. It was assumed that these glands were responsible for vaginal lubrication; however, Masters & Johnson proved conclusively that the majority of lubrication comes from deeper within the vaginal passage.

What these glands DO do, however, is produce a very small amount of lubrication (a matter of drops), upon a woman’s sexual arousal – especially as she approaches orgasm.

URETHRA
The urethra, for women as with men, is a passageway connecting the bladder to the world outside the body. In women, the opening is located between the clitoris and the vaginal opening. However, if it should so pass that you’re lucky enough to bring a woman to – or at least witness – a woman’s ejaculation – yes, it is emanating from the urethral opening; however, it isn’t urine – it’s not even coming from the bladder, but from…

SKENE’S GLANDS
These are the progenitors of female ejaculation, located on the anterior wall of the vagina, near the lower end of the urethra. This area is a hotbed of area when it comes to female ejaculation – not only are the Skene’s within the vaginal passageway, placing them near the hallowed g-spot; but the glands themselves are surrounded by a veritable orgy of soft, sensitive tissue – including the interior part of the clitoris.

Now, it’s said that only certain guys actually like performing cunnilingus. These are the sorts of things usually said by the ubiquitous ‘they’: “You know, they say that only Hobbits, Ewoks, and leather-clad fashionistas like conferring cunnilingus.” They say a lot, don’t they?

Don't believe the hype. Buying into this stereotype is like limiting your sexual knowledge to whatever you managed to glean from Truly Tasteless Jokes, Volume Pi.

The first thing that They tell many young males about cunnilingus is a litany of euphemisms and exhortations about The Smell. Chances are that, regardless of whether you have ever gone down on a woman, if you are a man, you have been notified, warned, and/or beseeched as to the properties of The Smell. The tall tales of The Smell includes, but is not limited to, references toward a plethora of aquatic creatures.

The next thing They will tell you is an equally distasteful dissertation on The Taste. The ‘fishy’ thing comes up a lot from the mouths of the ever-present They; though, aside from the tuna comparisons, they never do specify what kind of fish.

In case you haven’t yet noticed, it’s usually the really skeevy dudes whose olfactory and gustatory senses are the most offended. You know – those guys who always seem to be hanging out at the gas station, chainsmoking filterless discount-brand cigarettes while discussing amongst their peer group a way to break into the highly lucrative used-tires market. Yeah, those guys. They are, in a way, the modern equivalent to Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, though the albatross of their shared rime is not a creature of the air, but rather tuna-by-panty. And, even more so like the Ancient Mariner, they never seem to have dates at weddings.

So, for pussy’s sake, for posterity’s sake, let’s quickly dispense with the sea shanties, the feckless fishiness, the sushi-hater’s diatribes against tuna tartare – can we just get over this crap/carp already? Here – consider these factoids:

The vagina is like a high-powered battery; as such, it is at its healthiest a highly acidic environment. The vagina is fairly acidic, with a ph of 3.8 – 4.5; not a score you'd want off the high dive, but perfect for the muff dive. This is to keep her stuff healthy. Healthy stuff is good stuff. So don’t fuck with it. Unless of course she has asked you to fuck (with) it. Proper hygiene (which does not include douching – douching is BAD) does not result in a Dr. Moreau-like tuna-pussy hybrid. Also, boys, do keep in mind the effaciousness of pheromones. If you want to get to know the Power of the Pussy, then the first thing you need to do is smell the magic – and fall in love (or like) with it.

Pussy, like so many other of life’s delicacies, is best served ad gustum – to one’s taste. Which really just means this: if you like her, you’ll probably like the way she tastes. Pheromones, baby – can’t argue with nature.

But you don’t have to believe me. Take it from American songstress/philosopher laureate Jessica Simpson:

“This doesn’t taste like chicken of the sea!”

In Part Two, we’ll get into the finer points of cunnilingus, the gentle art of cunnilingering, and provide you a Rosetta Stone-like primer on cunnilinguistics.